UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE

DEPARTMENT OF LOGIC AND
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

COLLOQUIUM

"What's in a Name?"

Abstract:
In this paper, I argue that names are anaphoric devices of a quite
peculiar
sort. In particular, I argue that to be a name is to be an expression type
N such that any two tokens of N are guaranteed to be
co-referential. I say that co-typical name tokens are explicitly
co-referential. Explicit
co-reference is sharply distinguished from what I call coincidental
co-reference. Two name tokens which are not co-typical can refer to the
same
object, and thus be co-referential, without being explicitly
co-referential. For example, tokens of 'Hesperus' and tokens of
'Phosphorous' co-refer
but are not explicitly co-referential. The fact that tokens of 'Hesperus'
one and all refer to Venus is entirely independent of the fact that tokens
of
'Phosphorus' one and all refer to Venus. Indeed, I take it to be a
correlative truth about names, a truth partly definitive of the
lexical-syntactic
character of names, that when m and n are distinct names, they are
referentially independent. Referential independence means, roughly, that
no name is subject to the interpretive/referential control of any other
name in the sense that no structural or lexical relation between distinct
names m and n can guarantee that if m refers to o then n
refers to o as well. I argue that appreciating the explicit
co-referentiality of
co-typical name tokens and the referential independence of type distinct
names is the key to understanding several puzzling phenomena that
have long concern philosophers of language. Among these puzzling
phenomena, I include Frege's puzzle about the possibility of informative
identity statements, the failure of co-referring names to be
intersubstitutable in propositional attitude contexts, and puzzles about
empty and/or
fictional names.

Kenneth A. Taylor

Department of Philosophy

Stanford University

Friday, October 19, 2001

3:00 p.m.

SST 777

Kenneth A. Taylor

A Bibliography
Compiled by
Eddie Yeghiayan

1984

"Direct Reference and the Theory of Meaning." PhD Dissertation,
University of Chicago, 1984.

"What in Nature Is the Compulsion of Reason?"
Synthese (February 2000), 122(1-2):209-244.

2001

"On the Explanatory Limits of Behavioral Genetics."
In David T. Wasserman and Robert Wachbroit, eds., Genetics and
Criminal Behavior. Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and
Public Policy. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.